Windows 8 at Mobile World Congress 2012 (Day 3)

Today was Microsoft’s Windows 8 Consumer Preview event at Mobile World Congress. Day 3 of MWC was all about Microsoft and this event proved that. Microsoft detailed and released their Windows 8 Consumer Preview, which includes around 100,000 changes from the last developer release – yes, that’s 100,000 with 6 zeros. They also released the Windows Store, an app marketplace comparable to the Mac App Store. Check after the break for each of the Windows 8 announcements from the day.

Windows 8 Consumer Preview available for download

After discussing Windows 8 more today at their event, Microsoft released the Consumer Preview, available for the public download and test, free of charge. Microsoft suggests that only advanced users comfortable with downloading pre-release software and tampering with things a bit. Microsoft states that the software is not bug free, nor is downloading it risk free. Microsoft’s minimum requirements for running the upgrade is the same as Windows 7 – 1GB of RAM, 16GB of free storage space, a 1 GHz processor, and a Direct-X 9 graphics card.

Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview 5

Available to only Windows 8 users, Microsoft has released their 5th platform preview of IE10 today. Along with the usual bug fixes, you get improved performance and better HTML 5 support, which is becoming an internet standard. You must be running the Windows 8 Consumer Preview to test drive the platform preview.

Windows 8 shown off on a multitude of devices

Microsoft showed off it’s Windows 8 OS on a few different reference devices today, running ARM and Intel x86 versions of W8. The tablets were using NVIDIA Tegra 3 processors. For the most part, tablets will somewhat replicate the desktop experience.

More information is bound to be released by Microsoft and other sources, especially with the Consumer Preview available now.